Are you and your agency pulling in the same direction?

Agency and client relationships can be love/hate.

B2B Marketing Magazine allows both clients and agencies to vent their frustrations through their latest article, Maxine-Laurie Marshal looks at these frustrations from both sides. MarketMakers Operations Director, Henry Braithwaite gives his insight into agency and client relationships from the UK’s leading B2B telemarketing agency.

Agencies will try to be everything to everyone and find it difficult to recognise some parts of the campaign may be best left to other agencies.

“Our most successful clients run agency days where PR, digital and direct agencies get together to discuss plans, pool resource and come up with the best result for the client.”

Henry Braithwaite,
Operations Director
MarketMakers

Last on the list of gripes about agencies was their tendancy not to report quickly or often enough. Clients are under pressure to show progress and they often need to show that progress quickly. An agency is an extension of a marketer’s in house team, marketers communicate with their teams daily, so should the same apply for their agencies?

However, the good news is the agencies all agreed times have changed and the days of six months or annual leave reviews have gone. Malone says: Agencies can’t rigidly plan for reporting anymore, instead they need to discuss how to best present results back to their clients and allow for greater reporting flexibility in any scope of work.”

Our Operations Director Henry Braithwaite agrees and believes the reporting should be confirmed when the initial contract is signed. But whose responsibility is it? While not receiving reports when they want or need them may frustrate marketers, they are the ones who need them so the omnus should be on them to ensure the agencies know when and how often reports are expected.